Julie Olson, PhD

Our Research and Training Institute (RTI) took front stage in sunny San Diego this week at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting. Three abstracts from the RTI were accepted to the conference, each representing a separate blood cancer specialty registry from the Cancer Experience Registry®.

While clear advances have certainly been made in treatment and survival, there remains a critical need to better understand the quality of life implications of survivorship. We applaud the multidisciplinary approach of cancer care, and also advocate strongly for an even more comprehensive view of treating patients, above and beyond the treatment of their disease.

Financial considerations may hinder the use of psychosocial care among cancer patients. Indeed, research has debated the extent to which patients are willing to pay for the costs associated with successful psychosocial interventions. A recent article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, however, suggests that cost-effective programs are not only attainable, but that they also have promising implications for the well-being of distressed cancer patients.